Looking ahead, one thing is clear: Rapidly evolving technology is critical to the future of fully autonomous driving. Recently, I wrote about what goes on under the hood of the latest automated vehicles. Others in my field have covered the incredible value automated driving will have on our society — on a global scale, it could save more than USD $5.6 trillion per year by preventing accidents, boosting productivity and reducing fuel costs.

But this change won’t happen on its own. To turn a vision into reality, our transportation ecosystem will need new levels of collaboration and a comprehensive set of technologies that span three critical areas: the car, connectivity and the cloud.

Car to Cloud: Compute Is the New Horsepower

To start with, cars will need incredibly high computing power so they can quickly react to changes on the road. They’ll need to recognize objects, determine how fast and in which direction they’re moving and make split-second decisions about how to navigate around them. This requires a level of in-vehicle computing we haven’t seen before.

To give system designers exactly the level of compute they need, Intel delivers a portfolio that’s incredibly scalable, ranging from power-optimized Intel Atom to high-performance Intel Xeon processors. Rather than pursuing a single microarchitecture to handle everything, we’re designing products that will enable real-time decisions to be made across a variety of independent computing elements where the workload could run. With multiple domains of overlapping compute and sensor processing, workloads can be distributed with greater safety and security. Furthermore, our flexible architecture maximizes hardware and software reuse, so automakers and tier 1 suppliers can pursue countless design iterations that differentiate their brands and accommodate a wider range of market needs.

But even if we have the technology to build fully autonomous vehicles, consumers will not embrace them until self-driving cars earn their trust. An automated vehicle’s human-machine interface (HMI) is how the car and its passengers communicate with each other. Intel is making significant investments in primary and collaborative research to reveal insights on how automotive HMIs can facilitate and enhance trust interactions. Our research has led to key findings about the interactions that build trust. For example, cars should share what they “see” with passengers and give them multiple ways to provide instruction or request changes.

5G: Communication in Milliseconds

As mobile data traffic surges, connected vehicles will be among the billions of devices competing for network bandwidth. To confidently support vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications and other new experiences, transportation providers will need increasingly faster data transfer speeds and response times — not just in seconds, but in milliseconds.

The next generation of mobile networking, 5G, is expected to deliver one-millisecond, ultra-low latency with 99.999 percent reliability at 10 Gbps speeds. It will allow automakers to target several exciting new use cases, such as high-definition (HD) map downloads in real time, HD content for in-vehicle infotainment and over-the-air firmware and software updates. In addition, data from the vehicle’s sensors will be uploaded to the cloud to inform machine learning models.

A Powerhouse for a New Era of Data

Finally, transportation providers will need substantial cloud capabilities powered by an advanced data center. With each automated vehicle expected to generate about 4,000 GB of data per day, data centers will need to support unprecedented amounts of information. This data will allow the automotive ecosystem to act on new business opportunities, such as transportation-as-a-service (TaaS).

Even more important is the role data centers will play in artificial intelligence (AI) simulation and ongoing training. The work being done in this area will lead to driving models that will make vehicles truly automated. Because it is so memory intensive, AI simulation and training require scalable, high-performance and power-efficient infrastructure.

The Road Ahead

As the car moves to the center of the autonomous world, transportation providers must swiftly respond to — and grow with — market demands. Intel is leveraging our expertise in IoT to deliver the most flexible, scalable and secure solutions for automated driving. Our new Intel GO portfolio is accelerating the time it takes OEMs to bring automated driving solutions to market.

By collaborating with some of the world’s leading automotive brands, we are building solutions unlike anything seen before and helping transportation providers map a path forward. From vehicle dynamics to semiconductor physics, car to cloud, we are preparing the industry for the amazing future of transportation and truly automated vehicles.

Looking ahead, one thing is clear: Rapidly evolving technology is critical to the future of fully connected driving. Recently, I wrote about what goes on under the hood of the latest connected vehicles. Others in my field have covered the incredible value connected driving will have on our society — on a global scale, it could save more than USD $5.6 trillion per year by preventing accidents, boosting productivity and reducing fuel costs.

But this change won’t happen on its own. To turn a vision into reality, our transportation ecosystem will need new levels of collaboration and a comprehensive set of technologies that span three critical areas: the car, connectivity and the cloud.

Car to Cloud: Compute Is the New Horsepower

To start with, cars will need incredibly high computing power so they can quickly react to changes on the road. They’ll need to recognize objects, determine how fast and in which direction they’re moving and make split-second decisions about how to navigate around them. This requires a level of in-vehicle computing we haven’t seen before.

To give system designers exactly the level of compute they need, Intel delivers a portfolio that’s incredibly scalable, ranging from power-optimized Intel Atom to high-performance Intel Xeon processors. Rather than pursuing a single microarchitecture to handle everything, we’re designing products that will enable real-time decisions to be made across a variety of independent computing elements where the workload could run. With multiple domains of overlapping compute and sensor processing, workloads can be distributed with greater safety and security. Furthermore, our flexible architecture maximizes hardware and software reuse, so automakers and tier 1 suppliers can pursue countless design iterations that differentiate their brands and accommodate a wider range of market needs.

But even if we have the technology to build fully connected vehicles, consumers will not embrace them until self-driving cars earn their trust. An connected vehicle’s human-machine interface (HMI) is how the car and its passengers communicate with each other. Intel is making significant investments in primary and collaborative research to reveal insights on how automotive HMIs can facilitate and enhance trust interactions. Our research has led to key findings about the interactions that build trust. For example, cars should share what they “see” with passengers and give them multiple ways to provide instruction or request changes.

5G: Communication in Milliseconds

As mobile data traffic surges, connected vehicles will be among the billions of devices competing for network bandwidth. To confidently support vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications and other new experiences, transportation providers will need increasingly faster data transfer speeds and response times — not just in seconds, but in milliseconds.

The next generation of mobile networking, 5G, is expected to deliver one-millisecond, ultra-low latency with 99.999 percent reliability at 10 Gbps speeds. It will allow automakers to target several exciting new use cases, such as high-definition (HD) map downloads in real time, HD content for in-vehicle infotainment and over-the-air firmware and software updates. In addition, data from the vehicle’s sensors will be uploaded to the cloud to inform machine learning models.

A Powerhouse for a New Era of Data

Finally, transportation providers will need substantial cloud capabilities powered by an advanced data center. With each connected vehicle expected to generate about 4,000 GB of data per day, data centers will need to support unprecedented amounts of information. This data will allow the automotive ecosystem to act on new business opportunities, such as transportation-as-a-service (TaaS).

Even more important is the role data centers will play in artificial intelligence (AI) simulation and ongoing training. The work being done in this area will lead to driving models that will make vehicles truly connected. Because it is so memory intensive, AI simulation and training require scalable, high-performance and power-efficient infrastructure.

The Road Ahead

As the car moves to the center of the connected world, transportation providers must swiftly respond to — and grow with — market demands. Intel is leveraging our expertise in IoT to deliver the most flexible, scalable and secure solutions for connected driving. Our new Intel GO portfolio is accelerating the time it takes OEMs to bring connected driving solutions to market.

By collaborating with some of the world’s leading automotive brands, we are building solutions unlike anything seen before and helping transportation providers map a path forward. From vehicle dynamics to semiconductor physics, car to cloud, we are preparing the industry for the amazing future of transportation and truly connected vehicles.

This is the third in a series of blog posts based on Intel research into human-machine interfaces (HMIs) for connected driving. Read the first and second in this series.

In my previous articles, I’ve written about why it’s so important to design experiences that build trust and confidence in connected vehicles. Now I’ll go over some of the technologies that work inside the vehicle to support these experiences and how we can design systems to provide more seamless interactions between a vehicle and its passengers.

Taking a step back, let’s start with a word: convergence. Convergence is the single greatest accelerator for the development and adoption of connected vehicles. We are converging the automotive industry with the technology industry. Mechanical engines with computing engines. Physical experiences with digital experiences.

For the purposes of this article, let’s explore the convergence of two previously disparate systems within the vehicle itself: active safety and infotainment.

Where Two Systems Meet

Active safety systems are as old as cars themselves. These are features that were designed to prevent accidents — think steering and brakes. More recently, active safety systems have expanded to include features like brake assist, adaptive cruise control and collision warning.

On the other hand, in-vehicle infotainment was created for the pure enjoyment of the driver and his or her passengers. It started with the radio. Later, cassette and CD players were added to the mix. Today, a car’s entertainment might include navigation systems, video players and compatibility with the driver’s smartphone. When we talk about HMI, this is where it lives. The in-vehicle infotainment system is responsible for all interactions between a vehicle and its occupants.

Historically, a vehicle’s infotainment and active safety systems have been strictly separated. They’re often developed by entirely different engineering teams. However, in a highly or fully connected vehicle, active safety systems need to interact with the driver or passengers — for example, to warn of a potential collision. Simply put, these two systems need to start working together.

A Single Platform

The solution my team at Intel has proposed is to converge the vehicle’s active safety and infotainment systems into a unified architecture. This architecture must link self-driving functionality with visual, audible and other communication with passengers.

Architectural convergence can take a variety of forms. Vehicle engineers could physically converge active safety and infotainment systems onto a single high performance compute cluster. They could also keep them separate, but connected. Either way, engineering teams have a new challenge: How can they safely and securely link two very different systems in a way that delivers seamless communication — and a cohesive experience — to passengers?

We believe that a single platform is the most elegant solution to this challenge. One system that delivers infotainment and HMI interactions, while also performing the active safety functions of the vehicle, affords exciting new opportunities for tight integration.

Overcoming Challenges

That said, converging these systems requires specialized hardware separation to ensure that safety systems with high Automotive Safety Integrity Levels (ASILs) are protected and take priority over noncritical safety functions. In other words, collision avoidance is more important than, say, navigation. One excellent way to help isolate these functions is with Intel Virtualization Technology, which allows multiple workloads to share a common set of resources while maintaining full isolation from each other.

Even if active safety and infotainment systems aren’t physically converged, they must still achieve convergence at a system level, with highly secure and deterministic mechanisms to communicate with each other. For example, if the active safety system needs to notify passengers of a situation immediately, it must have a secure channel to the infotainment system. Furthermore, whatever had been taking place on the infotainment system must be interrupted at once to deliver the safety message. Contrary to traditional design, these mechanisms will now likely require conformance to an ASIL for the very first time.

But this challenge may not be as difficult as it seems. Again, hardware virtualization can provide an isolated extension of the active safety system, delivering the safety and security isolation needed to support a converged architecture.

These are early days for connected vehicles. But if they are to truly succeed in the market, it will be critical to design trust interactions that make drivers and passengers feel safe, comfortable, confident and in control. To learn more about the road ahead for connected vehicles, visit intel.com/automotive. For more on Intel IoT developments, subscribe to our RSS feed for email notifications of blog updates, or visit intel.com/IoT, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

This is the third in a series of blog posts based on Intel research into human-machine interfaces (HMIs) for automated driving. Read the first and second in this series.

In my previous articles, I’ve written about why it’s so important to design experiences that build trust and confidence in automated vehicles. Now I’ll go over some of the technologies that work inside the vehicle to support these experiences and how we can design systems to provide more seamless interactions between a vehicle and its passengers.

Taking a step back, let’s start with a word: convergence. Convergence is the single greatest accelerator for the development and adoption of automated and fully autonomous vehicles. We are converging the automotive industry with the technology industry. Mechanical engines with computing engines. Physical experiences with digital experiences.

For the purposes of this article, let’s explore the convergence of two previously disparate systems within the vehicle itself: active safety and infotainment.

Where Two Systems Meet

Active safety systems are as old as cars themselves. These are features that were designed to prevent accidents — think steering and brakes. More recently, active safety systems have expanded to include features like brake assist, adaptive cruise control and collision warning.

On the other hand, in-vehicle infotainment was created for the pure enjoyment of the driver and his or her passengers. It started with the radio. Later, cassette and CD players were added to the mix. Today, a car’s entertainment might include navigation systems, video players and compatibility with the driver’s smartphone. When we talk about HMI, this is where it lives. The in-vehicle infotainment system is responsible for all interactions between a vehicle and its occupants.

Historically, a vehicle’s infotainment and active safety systems have been strictly separated. They’re often developed by entirely different engineering teams. However, in a highly or fully autonomous vehicle, active safety systems need to interact with the driver or passengers — for example, to warn of a potential collision. Simply put, these two systems need to start working together.

A Single Platform

The solution my team at Intel has proposed is to converge the vehicle’s active safety and infotainment systems into a unified architecture. This architecture must link self-driving functionality with visual, audible and other communication with passengers.

Architectural convergence can take a variety of forms. Vehicle engineers could physically converge active safety and infotainment systems onto a single high performance compute cluster. They could also keep them separate, but connected. Either way, engineering teams have a new challenge: How can they safely and securely link two very different systems in a way that delivers seamless communication — and a cohesive experience — to passengers?

We believe that a single platform is the most elegant solution to this challenge. One system that delivers infotainment and HMI interactions, while also performing the active safety functions of the vehicle, affords exciting new opportunities for tight integration.

Overcoming Challenges

That said, converging these systems requires specialized hardware separation to ensure that safety systems with high Automotive Safety Integrity Levels (ASILs) are protected and take priority over noncritical safety functions. In other words, collision avoidance is more important than, say, navigation. One excellent way to help isolate these functions is with Intel Virtualization Technology, which allows multiple workloads to share a common set of resources while maintaining full isolation from each other.

Even if active safety and infotainment systems aren’t physically converged, they must still achieve convergence at a system level, with highly secure and deterministic mechanisms to communicate with each other. For example, if the active safety system needs to notify passengers of a situation immediately, it must have a secure channel to the infotainment system. Furthermore, whatever had been taking place on the infotainment system must be interrupted at once to deliver the safety message. Contrary to traditional design, these mechanisms will now likely require conformance to an ASIL for the very first time.

But this challenge may not be as difficult as it seems. Again, hardware virtualization can provide an isolated extension of the active safety system, delivering the safety and security isolation needed to support a converged architecture.

These are early days for automated vehicles. But if they are to truly succeed in the market, it will be critical to design trust interactions that make drivers and passengers feel safe, comfortable, confident and in control. To learn more about the road ahead for automated vehicles, visit intel.com/automotive. For more on Intel IoT developments, subscribe to our RSS feed for email notifications of blog updates, or visit intel.com/IoT, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

This is the second in a series of blog posts based on Intel research into human-machine interfaces (HMIs) for connected driving. Read the first one here.

In my previous blog post I wrote about how Intel’s user experience research teams have been conducting tests in the realm of fully connected vehicles, and how the results of our research are helping to drive advancements in HMI capabilities. Building on that first post, I’d like to share six key use cases in which our research shows trust interactions will be crucial.

One thing to keep in mind is that while personally owned connected vehicles will eventually be available for us to purchase, fleet-managed fully connected vehicles are likely to reach the market first. These are vehicles a person can hire, like a taxi. Fleet vehicles will provide the first fully connected vehicle experience for millions of passengers. They’ll need to be designed with a focus on interactions that build trust, from the moment a ride is requested.

1: Requesting a Connected Vehicle

You’re standing on a busy downtown street corner. Traffic is rolling by. You’ve just requested a pickup from a ride-hailing service, but there’s a catch. The car is driverless. Without a human behind the wheel, how will the car recognize you? How will you know it’s your ride?

When deploying fully connected vehicles as part of their fleets, transportation-as-a-service providers will need to make it easy for passengers to ensure the car that shows up is the one they asked for. Today, drivers and passengers of ride-sharing services can usually see a photo of one another. In addition, riders can confirm that the license plate on the car matches what they see on their app. Fleet connected vehicles will need a quick, simple way to be identified, whether it’s by photos, serial numbers, proximity sensors, or a combination thereof. Vehicles could even have an external display or indicator to let the passenger know that it’s there for him or her.

2: Entering the Vehicle and Initiating a Trip

Even in the absence of a human driver, getting inside an connected vehicle should be a warm, welcoming experience. Vehicles should offer a welcome message and invite passengers to adjust the environment — such as temperature and music selection— to their liking. These little touches can help passengers feel comfortable and confident once inside the vehicle.

Today, ride-sharing services let passengers select their destination via mobile app before the car arrives. However, the driver often confirms the route as the passenger enters. A connected vehicle’s HMI must make it incredibly easy to confirm the destination or set it for the first time. Large, prominent touchscreens can give passengers a way to quickly see where they’re headed or make changes.

3: Handling Trip Changes

Road construction. An accident ahead. A sudden urge for a burger and fries. Whether based on the vehicle’s GPS or a passenger’s whim, trip changes must be handled simply and clearly.

Clear, bidirectional communication between passengers and the vehicle’s HMI is the first and foremost way to remove ambiguity and confusion — and build confidence and trust. Connected vehicles will need to inform passengers of route changes or request additional details with messages that are simple and easy to understand. The HMI must also acknowledge passenger inputs, so that riders know their instructions have been received.

4: Handling Emergencies

From time to time, connected vehicles will be faced with emergencies or situations that require dramatic reactions. In these cases, successful HMIs will provide context for what just happened — for example, the vehicle stopped suddenly to avoid hitting another car running a red light. If the situation requires, the HMI should also give additional context for what should or will be happening next — for example, passengers should exit the vehicle and wait for another vehicle in a safe location.

Connected vehicles will need to be designed with consideration for what happens in an accident and what instructions are provided to passengers. How will the vehicle notify police, respond to injured passengers or request a new vehicle if the current one is disabled?

5: Safely Pulling Over and Exiting

A good HMI will allow passengers to tell the vehicle where they’d like to be dropped off. If there are pedestrians, bicyclists or other obstacles, the HMI should show passengers that it knows they are there and will navigate safely around them. Sensors inside the vehicle can detect when the passengers have exited and even alert riders if a personal object, such as a mobile device, has been left behind. Outside the vehicle, sensors will continue to monitor passengers. Lights or other signals should clearly tell passengers when it’s safe to cross in front of the car.

6: Using the Road in Proximity to a Connected Vehicle

Not only must connected vehicles win the trust of their passengers, but also the people and drivers around them. Visual or audible notifications can help pedestrians and other vehicles safely cross in front of a connected vehicle. Our research has found that showing passengers what the connected vehicle “sees” is a key aspect of establishing trust. For example, many participants noted that when the HMI included a visual display of a pedestrian crossing the street, they felt more confident in the vehicle’s ability.

At the end of the day, connected vehicles must behave, react, and communicate in ways that passengers, pedestrians and other drivers are comfortable with. Only by winning trust will connected vehicles achieve widespread adoption.

This is the second in a series of blog posts based on Intel research into human-machine interfaces (HMIs) for automated driving. Read the first one here.

In my previous blog post I wrote about how Intel’s user experience research teams have been conducting tests in the realm of automated and fully autonomous vehicles, and how the results of our research are helping to drive advancements in HMI capabilities. Building on that first post, I’d like to share six key use cases in which our research shows trust interactions will be crucial.

One thing to keep in mind is that while personally owned automated vehicles will eventually be available for us to purchase, fleet-managed fully autonomous vehicles are likely to reach the market first. These are vehicles a person can hire, like a taxi. Fleet vehicles will provide the first automated vehicle experience for millions of passengers. They’ll need to be designed with a focus on interactions that build trust, from the moment a ride is requested.

1: Requesting an Automated Vehicle

You’re standing on a busy downtown street corner. Traffic is rolling by. You’ve just requested a pickup from a ride-hailing service, but there’s a catch. The car is driverless. Without a human behind the wheel, how will the car recognize you? How will you know it’s your ride?

When deploying automated or fully autonomous vehicles as part of their fleets, transportation-as-a-service providers will need to make it easy for passengers to ensure the car that shows up is the one they asked for. Today, drivers and passengers of ride-sharing services can usually see a photo of one another. In addition, riders can confirm that the license plate on the car matches what they see on their app. Fleet automated vehicles will need a quick, simple way to be identified, whether it’s by photos, serial numbers, proximity sensors, or a combination thereof. Vehicles could even have an external display or indicator to let the passenger know that it’s there for him or her.

2: Entering the Vehicle and Initiating a Trip

Even in the absence of a human driver, getting inside an automated vehicle should be a warm, welcoming experience. Vehicles should offer a welcome message and invite passengers to adjust the environment — such as temperature and music selection— to their liking. These little touches can help passengers feel comfortable and confident once inside the vehicle.

Today, ride-sharing services let passengers select their destination via mobile app before the car arrives. However, the driver often confirms the route as the passenger enters. An automated vehicle’s HMI must make it incredibly easy to confirm the destination or set it for the first time. Large, prominent touchscreens can give passengers a way to quickly see where they’re headed or make changes.

3: Handling Trip Changes

Road construction. An accident ahead. A sudden urge for a burger and fries. Whether based on the vehicle’s GPS or a passenger’s whim, trip changes must be handled simply and clearly.

Clear, bidirectional communication between passengers and the vehicle’s HMI is the first and foremost way to remove ambiguity and confusion — and build confidence and trust. Automated vehicles will need to inform passengers of route changes or request additional details with messages that are simple and easy to understand. The HMI must also acknowledge passenger inputs, so that riders know their instructions have been received.

4: Handling Emergencies

From time to time, automated vehicles will be faced with emergencies or situations that require dramatic reactions. In these cases, successful HMIs will provide context for what just happened — for example, the vehicle stopped suddenly to avoid hitting another car running a red light. If the situation requires, the HMI should also give additional context for what should or will be happening next — for example, passengers should exit the vehicle and wait for another vehicle in a safe location.

Automated vehicles will need to be designed with consideration for what happens in an accident and what instructions are provided to passengers. How will the vehicle notify police, respond to injured passengers or request a new vehicle if the current one is disabled?

5: Safely Pulling Over and Exiting

A good HMI will allow passengers to tell the vehicle where they’d like to be dropped off. If there are pedestrians, bicyclists or other obstacles, the HMI should show passengers that it knows they are there and will navigate safely around them. Sensors inside the vehicle can detect when the passengers have exited and even alert riders if a personal object, such as a mobile device, has been left behind. Outside the vehicle, sensors will continue to monitor passengers. Lights or other signals should clearly tell passengers when it’s safe to cross in front of the car.

6: Using the Road in Proximity to an Automated Vehicle

Not only must automated vehicles win the trust of their passengers, but also the people and drivers around them. Visual or audible notifications can help pedestrians and other vehicles safely cross in front of an automated vehicle. Our research has found that showing passengers what the automated vehicle “sees” is a key aspect of establishing trust. For example, many participants noted that when the HMI included a visual display of a pedestrian crossing the street, they felt more confident in the vehicle’s ability.

At the end of the day, automated vehicles must behave, react, and communicate in ways that passengers, pedestrians and other drivers are comfortable with. Only by winning trust will automated vehicles achieve widespread adoption.

Attendees flocking to CES last week were expecting, as they do so every year, Christmas in January: The newest, coolest consumer electronics, including the latest in smart and connected home technology. With the explosive growth in the Internet of Things, Intel has been focused on improving connectivity in the home, laying an important foundation for the smart homes of the future. Not only have we been building partnerships with service providers like Comcast, but also the industry OEM leaders who offer routers, gateways, and network-attached storage devices like ARRIS, ASUS, Belkin, Lenovo, Netgear, Phicomm, QNAP, and VTech.

Many of us already run numerous devices that are simultaneously connected to the Internet: the laptop, the kids’ tablets and video game consoles, the streaming video on TV, home security systems, everyone’s phones—never before have such huge demands been placed on the humble home Wi-Fi. And with more unceasing demands on the home network, consistently maintaining solid and reliable connectivity over a large footprint is no easy feat.

For this reason, we introduced Intel Home Wireless Infrastructure at CES to deliver consistent Wi-Fi performance and expanded in-home coverage. This new technology is optimized for a wide range of connectivity scenarios and supports virtually all client devices in the home network. Any home network can be intelligently managed for consistent and power-efficient performance while also providing optimal coverage. The ultimate goal is to make connectivity just like any other home utility, so the homeowner rarely needs to think about it. Switch it on, and it’s reliable, ubiquitous, and always on—everywhere and every time you need it.

This, along with the latest technologies from our partners, showcased the full potential of a well-connected home—connectivity that makes it possible to deliver a smart home that is perceptive, responsive, and autonomous to ease household management, enrich daily life, and provide peace of mind.

Speaking of peace of mind, the more devices that are connected, the greater amount of data that is vulnerable, so a reliable and secure gateway for the home network is essential. Here are some powerful new solutions that we featured at CES:

Comcast’s new advanced home wireless gateway, capable of delivering up to 9 GB per second over Wi-Fi in the home; supports voice, home monitoring, and automation applications; and will be the device that Comcast uses to make 1 GB-per-second Internet speeds possible. This first version of the new advanced gateway is based on the Intel Puma 7 SoC.

McAfee Secure Home Platform, which protects devices on home networks from hacks and attacks from the moment they connect. The platform also includes an easy-to-use mobile app to give consumers a flexible way to manage and secure their connected devices in the home, apply parental controls, and receive alerts in real time.

Intel also showcased how it is serving the growing demand for bandwidth on home access technologies. For copper access, Intel debuted a new member of the Intel AnyWAN transceiver family, a highly integrated G.Fast/VDSL/ADSL multimode device that allows operators to serve the latest technologies with gigabit rates over telephone wires—while keeping DSL backwards modes for smooth migration.

It’s through technology advancements and ongoing collaborations like these that make greater connectivity and security possible for the smart and connected home. Home networks are easier to set up, without an engineering degree. In other words, living spaces that are truly smart.

Were you able to attend CES? What smart and connected technologies did you see that you think will transform the way we live and interact with our homes?

Smart city tech deployments are expected to increase in the next year and of them significantly; the biggest one will be commercial-smart buildings. Connected building solutions, whether it’s environmental controls, communications interfaces, video surveillance, or energy conservation, can deliver cost savings and efficiency gains when building automation can be achieved.

With impending pressure to maximize both operational and energy efficiency, building managers are increasingly turning to smart building technology to modernize infrastructure and improve occupant experiences.

As more smart building deployments rise, some of the key trends we’ll see evolve and increase in adoption in the coming year are the following:

Energy Efficiency

Ambitious sustainability goals will continue to drive adoption of smart building technology. Reducing the carbon footprint of a given property requires both close monitoring and actionable data insights on energy and water use in the building. Networked sensors and analytics will provide information to empower building managers to control their assets better and reduce energy waste that can be harmful to the environment.

Asset Optimization

Increasing operational efficiency will also be a major focus. Instead of taking a costly “rip and replace” approach to upgrading legacy building systems and assets, building managers can improve operations with technology solutions that enable them to retrofit existing systems with sensors, securely delivering asset data to the cloud. Other key operational benefits for smart buildings include improving uptime of building equipment and avoidance of loss of product.

Meeting Occupant Expectations, Delivering New Experiences

As consumers increasingly embrace a connected lifestyle, there will be a demand for more seamless building environments that offer customized experiences based on occupant preferences. Examples include allowing office building tenants to easily adjust temperature settings in a specific area via supporting app, quickly locate an available conference room or know how long the cafe queue is before they arrive. These personalized experiences will provide additional value to smart building operators looking to attract and retain tenants.

Achieving Autonomy with Emerging Technologies/

Machine Learning and 5G connectivity will begin to emerge and work together to make building management a more autonomous task.

Machine learning enables buildings systems to collect, process and use the information collected from the systems to provide actionable insight in real-time for building managers to make quick decisions about maintenance and overall operations.

5G connectivity allows for more advanced data exchange between smart buildings that will be a major part of the groundwork for smart cities of the future.

A recent conference in China confirmed that a quiet revolution in digital signage is on.

The moment is ripe for transformation. Costs for sensors, bandwidth and compute have decreased significantly, while cloud, streaming media, remote management and increasing performance are bringing new capabilities to business, retail, industry and education.

Attendees to the recent 71st Education Equipment Industry Conference in Nanning, Guangxi, China, discovered an Internet of Things (IoT) capable of transforming education. Industry leaders, solution providers and educators gathered to take smart digital classrooms to the next level. Interactivity, autonomous learning, universal access to education resources and digital literacy were priorities, as China looks to improve its education models in light of innovative technologies.

A personal highlight — coming from my focus on advanced digital signage technologies used across industries such as retail, education, healthcare and smart cities — was the announcement of the Intel Visual Data Reference Design Specification. This new reference design brings cloud capabilities to the edge of the network. It combines compute, network, storage, accelerators and platform control to enable new digital signage solutions. It is exciting to see the most forward-looking of solutions — one that enables integration of high-performance, high-quality streaming audio/video with big data analytics and edge intelligence — poised to transform the lives of students and educators (with similar promise for retail and industry). The Intel reference design has already been adopted by ZoneKey for its video record broadcasting application based on Uzel.

And from my perspective, these innovations are sure to impact more than education. It’s easy to see the implications for retail and other industries using digital signage to rethink business models. Solution providers, OEMs and ODMs take note: streaming, interactive, data-informed video and audio with the performance and intelligence to operate from the edge to cloud will be a digital signage game changer.

More immersive experiences, high-performance video and audio, data-driven insight and seamless interactivity. It’s time to bring a new era of digital signage to market.

Digital Signage Goes to School

Enriching and expanding the learning experience is at the heart of new education applications based on the Intel Visual Data Reference Design Specification. Solutions, such as the ZoneKey video record broadcasting application, can bring more content into more classrooms, integrate record broadcasting systems and interactive whiteboards, and enable near-real-time responses based on big data analytics. By supporting both online and offline education and the cloud, digital signage solutions can provide massive media and education content resources to classrooms — whether urban or rural.

Students can engage in an active, collaborative learning process and benefit from remote learning. Schools and teachers can take advantage of content distribution features to release curricula, notifications, security notices and news.

What Can You Build?

The ZoneKey application unveiled in China is a great example of turning R&D into opportunity for our next generation of learners. I encourage you to explore the Intel Visual Data Reference Design Specification and seize the opportunity for a wide range of education, business and industry solutions.

In my position as GM for industrial solutions in the Intel Internet of Things Group (IOTG) I’ve heard manufacturers consistently voice frustration on how to effectively and efficiently develop, design and deploy robust functional safety solutions to meet evolving safety standards and protect the environment, people, products and company brand. They require safety-critical applications and workflows that accelerate the integration of robotics, security and control and automation systems to meet IEC 61508 functional safety certification requirements, while ensuring robust availability and reliability.

That’s why I’m so excited that manufacturers can now rely on Intel’s leadership and innovation in digital technology platforms for industrial safety applications with the release of the Intel Xeon processor D-1529 IEC 61508 certification solution — an integrated solution that improves operational and safety evaluation insight throughout the supply chain.

Functional Safety: From Silicon to Systems

An integrated functional safety design package for IEC61508 applications includes hardware, software, tools and documentation to accelerate development of safety integrity level (SIL) 1 and 2 applications and products— hazard risk analysis and safety integrity. Here are three key features of the solution:

Accelerates time to market with optimized diagnostics, support for mixed-criticality workloads and more

Functional Safety Meets High Performance

I’m also excited that this solution covers hardware and software, including standardized Intel silicon, the Intel Software Test Library and certification documentation. It’s all designed to help accelerate development of safety-certified systems. Read the product brief.

Delivering a Safer and More Secure Software Solution

Intel subsidiary Wind River is known for its comprehensive portfolio of software products that enable the development of functional safety solutions. Its VxWorks real-time operating system, Wind River Linux platform and Simics system simulation technology support and perfectly complement the Intel Xeon processor D-1529 for industrial IEC 61508 certification, delivering a differentiated and compelling functional safety offering for building next-generation critical systems. For more information, visit the Wind River functional safety page.

Functional Safety for Mixed-Criticality Workloads

I think manufacturers will also be thrilled to see that the Intel Xeon processor D-1529 brings built-in virtualization capabilities — robustly separating the consolidated safety and nonsafety applications on a shared compute platform. This enables mixed criticality workloads from multiple teams and suppliers to execute safe and non-safe applications, such as robotics, security, and control and automation systems. Added bonus: IT applications can run securely on the same platforms.

Now manufacturers can accelerate development of robust functional safety solutions to protect the environment, people and products. Just another way that Intel technology is leading the way for a better tomorrow.

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